This article examines the truism that studies from psychological
laboratories are low in external validity. Past rational (e.g., Mook, 1983)
and empirical (e.g., Anderson & Bushman, 1997) explorations of this
truism found little support for it. A broader empirical approach was presented;
correspondence between lab and field was compared across a broad range
of domains including aggression, helping, leadership style, social loafing,
self-efficacy, depression, and memory, among others. Correspondence between
lab- and field-based effect sizes of conceptually similar independent and
dependent variables was considerable. In brief, the psychological laboratory
has generally produced psychological truths, rather than trivialities.
These same data suggest that a companion truism about field studies in
psychology--that they are generally low on internal validity--is also false.